Bluefield eyes further expansion following £105.1m fundraise

Bluefield Solar Income Fund has raised £105.1 million through an oversubscribed share placing, to target further diversification and expansion of its assets.

The company issued 89,067,980 new ordinary shares at a price of 118p per share. This represents approximately 21.9% of the issued ordinary share capital of the company prior to the initial share issue.

These new ordinary shares will not rank for the third quarterly interim dividend of 2p per ordinary share declared earlier in July, however they will rank for all dividends thereafter.

John Rennocks, chairman of Bluefield Solar, said he was pleased to announce the "highly successful results of this Initial Issue.

“The proceeds raised will enable us to further diversify and grow the company’s extremely high quality portfolio of renewable infrastructure assets. This includes the previously announced and attractive maiden UK wind portfolio acquisition featuring over 90% regulated revenues to the accretive benefit of our shareholders seeking a robust level of Sterling based income with high ESG impact."

Bluefield’s share placing follows a similarly oversubscribed offer last year, which saw the company raise £45 million. This has been used to expand its portfolio, including the acquisition in August 2020 of a 64.2MWp solar portfolio and in January 2020 of the 70MWp Bradenstoke solar farm.

It has made an application for the new ordinary shares to be admitted to the Official List of the Financial Conduct Authority and to trade them on the main market for listed securities of the London Stock Exchange.

The company now has 496,067,602 shares in issue.